The Cartographers’ Guild is a forum created by and for map makers and aficionados, a place where every aspect of cartography can be admired, examined, learned, and discussed. Our membership consists of professional designers and artists, hobbyists, and amateurs—all are welcome to join and participate in the quest for cartographic skill and knowledge.

Although we specialize in maps of fictional realms, as commonly used in both novels and games (both tabletop and role-playing), many Guild members are also proficient in historical and contemporary maps. Likewise, we specialize in computer-assisted cartography (such as with GIMP, Adobe apps, Campaign Cartographer, Dundjinni, etc.), although many members here also have interest in maps drafted by hand.

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ. You will have to register before you can post or view full size images in the forums.

Stairs?

There was some recent discussion on spiral stairs on a thread Bogie started, so I wanted to throw out a "real" try to see how you guys like this. I just made it with textures I already have, but since I used layer masks, I can easily switch them out if requested with any other texture someone can point to.

Soo.... Here is the first one. If it's good, I will work on an up and perhaps a up/down(which is considerably harder to deal with.

Looks good! The shadowing where the stairs meet up with the central column seem a little dark and give the (first glance)
impression that they aren't attached (or slope towards it).

Yea.. I know what you mean... The problem though is since it's a pie shape when you do the blur it overlaps the parts(the "top" of a riser) which HAS to be sharp in order to get the "shadows'... If it's a bother, Perhaps I can add a bit more to the column itself and make it seem like it's sloped.... My main goal was making each "spoke" with a deep shadow to really sell the illusion of depth on the risers of the stairs.

Just popped to the Bogie stair post and thought "how about a rectangular landing". Gives the stairwell a place to start? And doesn't anyone ever include a hand rail. Man these spiral stairs look like a lawsuit waiting to happen. Hehe.

Looks pretty good to me. The thing is all the talk of shadowing totally depends on the light source. If you put a slitted window or a torch/lamp in somewhere everything is different.

If the light was coming straight down from the top things wouldn't be darker near the center column but would have a more even distribution across each step with the ones near the bottom of the staircase a bit darker over all than those nearer the top.
If the light is near the top of the stairwell (as in on the landing) the center column would throw a straight line shadow and pretty much everything below that would be in darkness or nearly so. You might have some reflective light bouncing down a ways but nothing really great.
A window slit or lamp half way up would look the coolest but then you would have the brightest part of the stairs being at the halfway point and more shadows farther down and up the stairs.
No light, in an enclosed spiral staircase is probably just a great way to break someone's neck.

Your stairs get the point across very clearly however and I do not think any gamer would mistake what they were looking at.

Last edited by Jaxilon; 03-21-2012 at 02:05 AM.

“When it’s over and you look in the mirror, did you do the best that you were capable of? If so, the score does not matter. But if you find that you did your best you were capable of, you will find it to your liking.” -John Wooden

“When it’s over and you look in the mirror, did you do the best that you were capable of? If so, the score does not matter. But if you find that you did your best you were capable of, you will find it to your liking.” -John Wooden